


Aveyond drabbles

by Blurble



Category: Aveyond
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-04 08:29:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 5,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5327420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blurble/pseuds/Blurble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This was a leftover from what was intended to be a much, much longer and rather dark Te'ijal/Galahad fic. Then my computer lkfdjgldkjg ate it</p></blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Galahad**  (after the beginning of LOT, before the end of GON)  
  
The problem was that once it was brought to his attention he couldn’t stop noticing it. It was everywhere. It was like the time someone had mentioned to him that the roads in Sedona were all named so that they had a prime number of vowels. He’d never noticed it before, had never even thought of it- and suddenly there it was. Every time he saw a road sign it popped into his head. He couldn’t help but count. It drove him crazy, until eventually he ended up knowing every road sign in Sedona by heart and finally it faded.  
  
Every time he saw her it popped into his head, that stupid conversation he’d had in that stupid tavern that stupid night that she’d been captured. Every time. For 300 years he had never noticed a single good thing about her and suddenly they were everywhere he turned. Her courage. Her bizarre, inexplicable integrity. Her smile. Her legsandher hairand her voice… and the way she looked at him when she thought he wasn’t looking. And the way she kept guard quietly when all the others were asleep. Everywhere, every moment of the day, there they were- the things that made her special and incredible and the things that made him lo- li- not _utterly_  hate her after all.  
  
And he didn’t know what to do with this strange, bizarre new way of seeing her. It grew in his chest daily, this feeling of… this feeling of… He couldn’t keep his eyes off her, somehow. She had become something strange and new and it was all the more incredible, this feeling of wonder he kept having, because he kept trying to remember how it was that he had never seen it before. Something so  _obvious_  and blatant and…  
  
It frustrated him, that he couldn’t express it. Somehow nothing had changed. There was a habit of 300 years firmly engraved between them, and they walked without thinking along the same lines they had always walked, relating to each other the same way they always had. But it wasn’t the same! There was nothing the same! It was completely different and it made him go mad with frustration, that no matter how he tried somehow all that came out of his mouth were the same exact things in the same exact tone as if it was the same exact world!  
  
So he would wait. He would wait for the chance. Because someday, somehow, something was going to change. And when it did he would take it as his opportunity.


	2. Chapter 2

**Te’ijal**  (After GoN)  
  
She stared in the mirror and growled, but of course it came out all wrong. It sounded the same but different, too soft somehow.  
  
Turning human had given her the biggest headache of her life. The world had gone dull and dim, the sparkling colors had faded to duller shades. She couldn’t see in the dark anymore. Her limbs had turned flaccid, weak. And worse… worse…   
  
Galahad.  
  
Being human made all her feelings- not stronger, merely closer. As a vampire she had felt with the same intensity but it was always at arms length. As a human it was right inside her, everything she felt would burn within her chest, so that it was hard to think clearly and…  
  
She had waited centuries and when she’d found him, she’d made the decision. Not carefully, on an impulse, but with clear intent nonetheless. She had waited and she had found him and decided they could have forever together.  
  
And now forever was gone.  
  
And she was petrified. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Mel 1a**  (pre-LoT)  
  
“Look, at that delicate face!” Lady Essa said, forcing Mel’s chin up. Her long, smooth fingers had nails painted in royal purple and they dug into Mel’s skin. “And she has a nice complexion… no? She can make a perfectly good slave, too,” she said, noting with hope the increase of interest in the visitor’s face. “She has the muscle- show the man your arm, honey,” she hissed.  
  
“It looks a bit scrawny,” the man observed.  
  
“Well,” Lady Essa said, “you know how it is, the cost of food and care is so very high… she can be easily fattened, though…” She trailed off.  
  
“Surely you have some that are more… substantial?” The man said.  
  
With a look of disgust, Lady Essa shoved Mel towards the guard. “Oh, take her away,” she moaned, “I can’t bear to see her anymore, the useless vermin.” She sighed. “Bring in one of the boys.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Mel 1b**  (Pre-LoT)  
  
The door shut with a dull thud, and she lay on the floor, covering herself with her small, torn sheet, her heart beating rapidly as she heard the lock click.  
  
She waited a moment or two and then with a deep breath sat up.  
  
The cell was cold and dark and filthy, identical in size and form to all the other orphans’ rooms. And like all the other rooms, it was infested with rats. But she had learned not to mind that… No, she’d come to wish her room had more rats.   
  
But that was not her concern, tonight. She could ignore her stomach. There were far more important things to take care of, right now.  
  
And she could not help but smile, as she pulled the small hidden file out from behind a loose stone in the corner of her room.  
  
It had taken her three weeks to get to this point. But tonight, without a doubt, was the night.  
  
She held it in both hands, abandoning the safety measure of the previous nights, when she had awkwardly tried to wrap it in her sheet to prevent it leaving tell-tale cuts on her hands- what did she care about the cuts? A little bit of blood was a small price to pay, for freedom. There was a bare millimeter left to file away from the bars on the window. She had reached around and filed from the outside, so it would not be visible. And now…  
  
As she raced to finish, rubbing the file back and forth in a frenzy, she couldn’t even feel the pain in her hands. It was pounding through her blood, a single syllable, over and over.  
  
Free, free, free, free…  
  
And when morning shone through the barless window of the miserable room that had been her only home for years, she was long, long gone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Stella**  (Sometime in the middle of LoT or GoN)  
  
Mel was moaning half-conscious on the ground as Stella busily bandaged her up.  
  
“Is she… okay?”  
  
“Edward!” Stella said, feeling her face heat up. “I- um. She should be fine. We’ll give her some meat… and bread… it’ll be fine. Shouldn’t take more than a few minutes for it to heal.”  
  
“Oh,” he said. “Oh, good.”   
  
And he smiled at her and she felt her heart break, for the thousandth time.  
  
It was such a gorgeous smile. And it was entirely not for her.  
  
But she… could be happy for Mel. And for Edward. Because she wanted her friends to be happy, because her friends happiness would make her happy as well.  
  
There was no point in being jealous, after all, that she wouldn’t be able to be the  _direct_  source of happiness herself.  
  
And that night for some reason she dreamed that she was flying. It didn’t feel like a dream, it felt real all the way down to the strain in muscles she was pretty sure she did not have. But it left her with a dull, dull ache in her throat when she woke up.


	6. Chapter 6

**Lydia**  (Very beginning of/Right before TLO)  
  
The dress was silk and chiffon and, naturally, it looked stunning on her. She twirled in front of the mirror, admiring the swirl of the skirts.  
  
It was black, with embroidery in soft green and gold, and it brought out the shine in her hair. It was her absolutely favorite dress… along with the red ballgown… and the blue silk china dress… and the cocktail gown… and the lavender dress…  
  
Oh well. She wouldn’t get to wear any of them, she thought, stripping carefully out of the gown.   
  
No, it would have to be this tacky thing. She looked at it, draped across a chair, with undisguised distaste.   
  
Thank the goddess she had disposed of the street brat  _before_  she’d had the chance to put it on, getting this off of the girl would have been almost more irritation than this was worth.  
  
Well, no, actually not. This was, after all, her dream.   
  
She slipped the dress on, tugging a bit, her head lost for a moment in soft silk so that all the world was white and white and white-  
  
“There is no such thing as love,” her mother had said, when Lydia was four. She had tripped and scraped her knee and begun to cry, and her mother had stood there and watched her, waiting until Lydia got up herself and tearfully ordered a servant to bring her a bandage. Her mother had favored her with a rare smile, when she’d seen that, and then she’d said- “There is only power, Lydia. Do you understand?”  
  
She did. She pulled the bow tight around her waist, refusing to be irritated that the street rat’s waist was slimmer than her own. Enormous, and purple- really, who had designed this dress? When she was queen, she would have them beheaded.  
  
And when she was queen she would wear any dress she wanted.  
  
When she thought of it like that, it was easy to smile with genuine joy as she said “I do”. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Talia**  
  
  
Saying goodbye to him was the strangest feeling she’d ever encountered.  
  
Heartbreak? She wondered if that’s what you called it, when you said goodbye to your other half. There was something surreal about it.  
  
But it was more an emptiness than a pain. She walked into the Dreamworld and she was empty, empty, empty.  
  
And all it felt like was a dream.  
  
\---  
  
No, heartbreak was something else entirely.  
  
When Frederick collapsed at the entrance to the Dreamworld and she realized she could not save him.  
  
When the oracle explained to her that she had failed.  
  
Despair…   
  
When she realized what she needed to do.  
  
Heartbreak would be something like that moment when he heard about Aldrin- When he’d gone pale and collapsed, heavily, into a chair.  
  
“I don’t understand, Talia,” he’d said.  
  
But she’d made him understand.  
  
She’d explained, carefully, gently.  
  
The Sun Priests must be revived. And Aldrin was…  
  
“I hate him,” Devin had said, vehemently. “I hate him,” he’d repeated, fists clenched, miserably.  
  
She wanted to agree. But it wasn’t like she could afford to be picky. There were not exactly an unlimited amount of Sun Priests to choose from. If Aldrin had his flaws... If he had his  _flaws_ , they would have to be endured.  
  
As long as she could bear it.  
  
\---  
  
And when she couldn’t bear it anymore, she found she was alone. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a leftover from what was intended to be a much, much longer and rather dark Te'ijal/Galahad fic. Then my computer lkfdjgldkjg ate it

Rhen forgot to assign him a seat far, far away from Te’ijal. He couldn’t truly fault the girl- she was well-meaning and kind and perhaps occupied in other things, what with this having been not only her wedding day but also something along the lines of a coronation for her, as she finally legitimately ascended the throne with Dameon at her side, but…  
  
But.  
  
“And do you, Rhen Pendragon, by the Goddess swear that…” the priest intoned.  
  
“Wedding makes me  _so_  excited,” Te’ijal murmured, the comment made obscene by how she so shamelessly pressed herself against him as she said it, cool fingers lifted to brush against his jaw…  
  
He jerked violently away, and the person standing beside him fell to the ground with a yelp. Around him, a disapproving buzz rose and fell, and what little blood was left in his system rushed angrily to his cheeks as he helped the man up.  
  
Oh, if he could only think of a discreet way of abandoning the abominable creature!  
  
He stood with a clear three inches of space delineating the boundaries between them. But Te’ijal had never been one to respect boundaries. Soon she was once again too close, far too close, like a disease…  
  
He shuddered and inched away, bumping shoulders with same man he had just toppled. The man turned to shoot him a poisonous glare before returning his attention to the scene before them, where Rhen, face shining with happiness, was accepting a ring from Dameon.  
  
And as she did, Te’ijal leaned against him,  _nuzzling_  against his neck.  
  
A wave of nausea rolled over him. He could have vomited, right then and there at a royal wedding. But there was nothing left in his stomach, not even acid, and so he simply clenched his teeth against the convulsions of his body’s disgust and stared fixedly ahead, and for the rest of the ceremony that was how they remained, Te’ijal with her eyes half closed and her hand softly curled on his shoulder.  
  
\---  
  
So the first time he ran away was immediately after the wedding. At the time he felt a rush of adrenaline, excitement,  _joy_  at the opening presented to him when Te’ijal left his side to congratulate the new couple.  
  
Only in retrospect would he realize the meaning behind the sideways glance she had given him as she’d walked away, that all along she’d known his intention. In retrospect it was so painfully obvious he couldn’t comprehend how he’d imagined otherwise.  
  
But imagine thus he clearly had, because he remembered taking extra pains to slip quietly, inconspicuously out of the hall, so much more lightly and gracefully than he could have managed when he was human.  
  
With his first step out of the hall he realized the fatal, fatal flaw in his plan, as a girl walked by in pink lace dress and the wind caught the scent of her and brought it straight to him.  
  
He pulled back into the stale air of the hall and felt his dead heart pounding furiously against his rib cage. Slowly, his hand went to his mouth. His fangs had extended themselves to full size, but the pain of it, the pain of their first eruption from his gums, was nothing, nothing compared to the hunger.  
  
There were no words for this pain. If pressed he might have said it was like dying, over and over over. Oh, god, every pleasure in the world paled in comparison with the mere thought of having it end, every good thing was some pale fake shadow, a meaningless, empty lie. The joy he had envied Rhen for mere  _moments_  before was like a joke, a fleeting pointless thing.  
  
He realized then and there that he had lost. It was all he could do to sink to his knees, rather than go chasing after the girl and break her like he knew it would be so easy to do. Right now the entrance to the Hall was empty, but only for so many minutes, and whoever it was that next came by would not survive, could not possibly survive because there was no chance, there was  _nothing_  left right now that would prevent him from ripping their throat out and sucking them dry, not as the last fleeting bits of his identity were washed away in the flood of this feeling, the last remnants of his self-control…  
  
How laughable, how naïve of him to have somehow thought he could resist this. There was no resistance left, and when the sound of footsteps came he was already kneeling no longer in shock but in readiness, every muscle tensed to pounce-  
  
And the double-doors opened wide to his wife, stalking forward towards him.  
  
“I was wondering where you wandered off to, dumpling,” she said.  
  
He stared at her. Slowly, he swallowed down the saliva that had pooled in his throat.  
  
She offered him a hand.  
  
“Get away from me, demonspawn,” he hissed. He scrambled backwards and groped blindly for the wall, to pull himself up.


	9. Chapter 9

 

**Galahad**

Vampires didn’t need sleep as humans did.  
  
But at first he slept anyway, partially to make a point, partially because he found that he was exhausted, more than he had ever been as a human. It was so easy, he found, to drift off for hours in dead sleeps from which he woke feeling no more refreshed than when he had laid down. And if it bothered him, that as he rested Te’ijal was still awake, watching him… He would ignore it. Because there was no harm left for her to do to him, anyway. No crueler hell she could drag him to, than the one he was in already.   
  
Stubbornly he slept at night, although energy coursed through his veins and kept his sleep fitful and easily disturbed, and then stumbled blearily through the too-bright day.  
  
His vision was far weaker than any of his other senses, and yet still the world had grown too vivid after his Turning, full of details he had never- could have never- noticed as a human. It left a burning feeling in his skull, the world all turned to bright little points of motion. At night, in contrast, his thoughts ran smooth and clear, and vision was easy and painless.  
  
Gradually he gave up on sleep, so that instead it was he who found himself staying awake, watching- or refusing to watch- as Te’ijal lightly dozed. Sleep had ceased to be refuge, had become a nightmare, as he woke from aching pleasurable dreams of warm, red liquid oozing from soft and delicate skin, woke in a haze of lax-limbed pleasure and agonizing guilt, that he could want so badly something that was so…  
  
Nauseating, he forced himself to think of it as.  _Delicious_ , went the incessant murmur inside his head.


	10. Chapter 10

**Mel**

 

Mel struggled to break free of Gyendal's grasp, but his grip was like iron.  
  
She hissed in frustration, and around her the dark damp stone corridor filled with flame, bright, angry, overpowering--  
  
which quickly died out.  
  
Gyendal laughed.  
  
"Your magic is pathetically weak, Darkthrop brat. Don't think it can get you out of here."  
  
She glared.  
  
"And I've spent all this time getting stronger, after all. Training. Improving. What have you been doing? Sitting around in town?" He gloated. "See, I'd feel almost bad for you, but you made this so  _easy_  for me? What, you thought your problems would just disappear if you ignored them?"  
  
She ground her teeth, against her capture, against her imprisonment, against the swelling ball of shame inside her gut at how right he was.  
  
She was so helpless.  
  
She was so... powerless.


	11. Chapter 11

 "The prince fell in love with her even though she was a slave! and then it turned out she was a princess all along! How romantic!" Stella cooed, clasping her hands together.  
  
Edward rolled his eyes. In his mind, he could hear what Mel would have to say to  _that_ \-- probably some remark and how now  _both_  sides of the relationship would be smug irritating prats.   
  
...In any case, she'd never, ever have let the words "how romantic" pass her lips.  
  
Unless she was being sarcastic.  
  
Dammit, he missed her.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Renn/Lara (for a genderflipped AU)

Father had been talking about buying a new slave for months, ever since stupid, useless Cissy had gotten herself bought by that man from the harbor.  
  
Of course it was going to be a girl, that much was  _obvious_. But Lara could still sort of dream, what kind of girl it would be.  
  
She didn't discuss this with Father. Slaves were lowly creatures. It wasn't like they would be  _friends_  or anything. But maybe someone who could--  
  
It wasn't like Lara needed anything. Lara was fine. She had the best tailored dresses, custom-made. It took her less than an hour each day to arrange her hair. Still. Someone she could actually talk to, occasionally-- Father wasn't a very good person to talk to, and Hara and Yelli were... well. It was complicated.  
  
Lara did not miss her mother, of course. That would be a weakness, and Lara wasn't weak.  
  
Plus it wasn't like she'd ever met her anyway. And Father never spoke about her.   
  
Also she was fine, but still. She hoped the new slave girl would be interesting.  
  
\---  
  
Only it wasn't a girl. It was a  _boy_! A big, hulking, sullen lout of a boy.   
  
Any and all dreams of the new slave helping her get dressed, complimenting Lara on what Lara already knew was excellent taste in fashion, flew out the window.   
  
Plus there was something-- ugh.   
  
There was something  _irritating_  about this slave boy. He barely spoke. He submitted mutely to the many blows her father gave him, submitted mutely to Father's instructions and Lara's, and yet-- and yet it was like there was something, underneath, like resentment or rebellion or--  
  
disdain.  
  
It was like the  _slave_  was looking down on them.  
  
It took Lara maybe a day before she hated him more thoroughly than anyone she'd ever met in her life.  
  
\---  
  
Lara knew for months that the Academy testers were coming. She knew also that she would pass. She'd always known she had magic, she'd practiced little tricks with it-- it was hard, a little, doing it uncontrolled and she couldn't manage very much.   
  
The day they came she spent an additional two hours getting dressed. Actually she'd woken up early, too overcome with excitement, and then she'd tried on every single one of her dresses twice. None of them seemed good enough. Finally she'd settled on The black and gold-- it did the nicest things for her complexion.   
  
She wandered down to the kitchen, yawning luxuriously. The pancakes were cold. Lara, who didn't really mind cold pancakes-- even though hot pancakes were definitely better-- merely clucked her tongue in annoyance, but she saw her father shooting the slave boy a glance. He was probably in for another beating later.   
  
Really, if only the boy wouldn't be so stoic through his beatings, refusing to utter a sound. It drove Father crazy, she knew that.   
  
But of course, the slave seemed to think he was better than them. She slammed the door in his face, for good measure-- he dodged out of the way, but his bucket of dirty water went sloshing over the floor.  
  
Lara breathed in, dangerously. If any of that stuff had gotten on her dress--   
  
But it hadn't. So she contented herself with a little smirk. "Clean it up, Pet," she said, "The envoys from Shadwood Academy are going to be here any second now. We even left the door open for them. If they came in and see the mess you've done, you've got something coming."  
  
She knew what came next-- He would look at her, for a moment, his eyes narrowing, and then turn to do what she'd asked.   
  
So boring, this slave boy. Maybe it wasn't even that he was rebellious. Maybe he was just stupid-- stupider than Cissy, hard as that was to believe possible.  
  
He did, indeed, meet her eyes. The same look of dull hatred. Same old, same old.  
  
But he didn't look away.  
  
She waited, for him to turn and do what she'd asked.  
  
He didn't look away. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, he was  _glaring_  at her, she wasn't going to be the first to look away-- But she couldn't, somehow, maintain contact with his eyes, burning darkly into hers, and so she gave a little laugh and rolled her eyes--  
  
"Why don't you do it, little miss princess?" The slave boy hissed, his voice laden with venom.  
  
She felt her mouth drop open.  
  
The-- how dare--   
  
She closed her mouth, made herself smirk instead. One never, ever lets a slave think he has the upper hand. "Father!" she called, "The Pet is talking bac-"  
  
She slammed, hard, against the wall, all the breath knocked out of her. The-- The slave had slammed her against the wall. His hand was pressed against her mouth-- she struggled, slapping at him futilely.  
  
Aia, he was  _strong_.  
  
"Shut up," he said, not that she could do anything else, his hand, big and calloused, was pressed so tightly against her mouth she couldn't  _breathe_ , "Shut the heck up, Lara, if you know what's good for you."  
  
He was terrifying. She thought, with a sudden horrified certainty,  _he's going to kill me_. The panic washed up in her so strong that--  
  
There was a flash--  
  
His grip loosened and she slumped against the wall for support, gulping in air-- But reminded, now, that she had magic, she sent another bolt of the stuff, zigzagging badly--  
  
So many bizarre things happened that day, but what came next was by far the most bizarre-- the slave boy grabbed a stick lying on the floor and raised it in front of himself, and there was a flare of light-- too bright, blinding--  
  
"If you'll excuse us," said a smooth voice, and Lara turned, horrified, to see the Shadwood Academy representatives standing in the door. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More genderflip

After a few days the boys decided something needed to be done.   
  
It was Renn who called Te'ijal over to the side, asking if they could talk. Renn got along, in an odd sort of way, with Te'ijal.  
  
But all of the boys were there.   
  
"Listen," Renn said. "You can't keep doing that."  
  
"Doing what?" Te'ijal said, his easy, lopsided smile stretched cheerily across his face.  
  
"You know," Elini said. "In Veldt there's a term for a man who imposes unwanted attentions on a woman."  
  
"It's not unwanted," Te'ijal said.  
  
"She said she doesn't want you to touch her!" Mar said. He was grinding his teeth, but that was how he always talked, like he was about to explode in rage.  
  
"She just doesn't realize yet, what she wants," Te'ijal said.   
  
"It doesn't matter, what she realizes or not. If she says she wants you to stop, you  _stop_ ," Renn said. "Otherwise... Otherwise, we are going to have to ask you to leave."  
  
"...Leave?" Te'ijal said. He looked, for a moment, almost panic-stricken.  
  
"You cannot stay with us if you keep harassing Galahad," Renn said.   
  
"Right," Elin and Mar chorused in agreement.  
  
\---  
  
Galahad came and thanked all three of them, individually, afterwards. And she stopped waking up to discover Te'ijal wrapped around her.  
  
The no-touching policy was rapidly expanded to a "no touching and no comments" policy. It got to the stage where every time Te'ijal so much as opened his mouth in Galahad's presence he had the three boys glaring him into submission.   
  
So there was no more waking up to Te'ijal having snuck into her tent, again. And no more far-too-familiar physical contact when they fought, Te'ijal's hand brushing against her waist as he turned to slash down another monster.  
  
Te'ijal had decided to be a gentleman, and this was evidently a very difficult thing for Te'ijal to do.   
  
He brought gifts. He held doors open (with a light smirk. Because both Te'ijal and Galahad knew full well that Galahad could open doors just fine on her own). And he never called Galahad "cupcake" or "treat" or "precious".  
  
No, he called her "Galahad". But he said it always, in a low whisper. Pulling the name out. Playing with it.  
  
And he'd watch the blood rise to her face and smile.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more genderflip

They were out of cassea leaves, which was a stupid, stupid, stupid oversight. And half of the party was passed out.  
  
Actually Renn would have rather been carrying Galahad. If only to keep her out of Te'ijal's hands, but Te'ijal had dashed over to Galahad's fallen body so fast no one could have hoped to beat him.  
  
Renn had even tentatively suggested that maybe he should take her. But Te'ijal had glared, for a moment truly terrifying, lips drawn back to show fangs. Then he relaxed, and smiled.  
  
"I won't  _eat_  her," he said. "I'm taking it slow, like you suggested."  
  
Actually, that had not been-- not quite-- what Renn had suggested. But after a while Renn had started to realize it was a hopeless battle.  
  
If you were a vampire who might very well live close to forever, there was very little you could be told to get you to really back off the object of your interest.  
  
Anyway, that left Mar to carry Elin and Renn.. carrying Lara.  
  
She was very light in his arms. Breathing shallowly, blood oozing out of her cuts.  
  
She always walked with a sort of careless grace but she fought like a demon. Odd, how he'd come to rely on her, considering how bitterly opposed he'd been to having her join him.  
  
"Reliable" was not a word he would ever have imagined applying to Lara Tenobor. And yet... the world was full of surprises, really.   
  
It was weird carrying a girl. Her head resting against his shoulder.   
  
Only a little bit further to walk, and they'd be back in town, and someone could run ahead and buy some cassea leaves. ("Someone" being Jane, of course).  
  
In his arms, Lara groaned. She was sweating, her face twisted in pain. How many hits had she taken before she'd fallen? He'd tried to move, to cover her, but Elin had been down to his knees and there was another monster in the way--   
  
He was supposed to be the leader, protecting everyone, and sometimes he was scared he couldn't do it, couldn't protect anyone--  
  
"Sorry," he whispered. He didn't expect a response, he was pretty sure she was essentially unconscious, but to his surprise she stirred and said--  
  
"Idiot." There was no real acid to her voice, exhausted and taut with pain. But-- exasperation, a little. "Not your fault..." her voice trailed off, her eyes closing.  
  
His hands weren't exactly in position, but he wanted-- wanted to brush away the hairs that had fallen across Lara's face, tuck them behind her ear.  
  
He froze at the thought, at the shiver that ran through his body.  
  
What was he thinking? This was Lara. The snotty little brat who had made his life a living hell. The short, cocky little pain. Hardly a real girl, she was so full of herself, so arrogant, so--  
  
But when they entered the city and he laid her, carefully, on a bench, to wait for the cassea leaves, he couldn't help but notice--  
  
Lara smelled like wildflowers. 


	15. Chapter 15

Rhen/Lars while both of them hate each other   
  
If there were things in life that Rhen was grateful about, surely high up there on the list was that someone, somewhere, had the foresight to enspell the doors of the dorm rooms so that Rhen didn't have to worry about Lars sneaking in while she wasn't around.  
  
She had no doubt he would-- or more likely send a lackey,  _how_  the smarmy prat managed to so quickly form a circle of admirers was somethin Rhen didn't want to think about too much for fear of losing all faith in humanity-- because he certainly had managed to attempt everything else.  
  
It was fortunate that a subtle rivalry existed between the sorcerors and the swordsingers, enough so that her classmates sort of were on her side. Not really on her side-- no one really was-- but enough so that they didn't trip her in the hallways or any of the other nasty little pranks Lars's more enthusiastic followers got up to.  
  
One day she'd opened her locker to discover it absolutely swarming with spiders-- a harmless kind, better than what she'd had to clean our of the Tenobor house. Most of them dispersed (accompanied by shrieks all down the hall) but she grabbed one of the ones that remained by the leg (it obediently dangled the rest of its' body away, and it was a useful trick she'd learned with spiders-- oh, yes, she was quite an expert on spiders, and that was another thing to thank Lars for) and marched over to the study hall, where Lars was sprawled out on one of the chairs, explaining something, to two sorcerors, one of whom was from an older year.  
  
She dropped the spider on his face and had the immense satisfaction of hearing him shriek like a little girl as he jumped out of his seat, pawing at his face.  
  
"Is it gone?" He said, shuddering wildly. "Is it gone?"  
  
"No it's still there-- it just crawled onto your neck--" she lied. He began slapping at his neck and she said "you should be careful, it might be poisonous".   
  
This second lie, casually delivered, served to make his face drain completely of color, and he gave a little moan. Had it been anyone else in the universe she might have had pity on him. But it was Lars, and if he hadn't wanted her to take advantage of his arachnophobia he shouldn't have dumped a boxful of ammunition in her locker.   
  
"What do I do," he said, standing completely still.   
  
"You have to sing to them," she said. "That's what I always did, you know. It's the high pitch-- it knocks them out."  
  
And, to her delight, he was actually panic-stricken enough to believe her. He got in a whole three faltering notes before her self-control failed her and she collapsed in helpless laughter.  
  
At which point he stopped singing and looked at her, eyes narrowed. "It's not poisonous, is it," he said, very slowly.  
  
"It's not on your neck, either" she managed to get out.  
  
"I'll remember this," he hissed, dangerously cold.  
  
This was too much to her and she burst into fresh peals of laughter. "S-s-so will they!" she said, gesturing at the rest of the study hall. Most of them were staring, although at her gesture they all became somehow very busily involved in something very important. No, it wasn't going to be quickly forgotten, Lars Tenobor, making a fool of himself because of some silly little brownling spider.  
  
  
  
is different from Rhen/Lars when they are being very grudgingly forced to if not respect than at least rely on each other  
  
She was, as far as he could tell, on her last legs, fighting off one of the three wolves that had attacked them.   
  
 _Good_ , he thought, out of habit, but it wasn't good, because while one of the three was lying, bleeding and unconscious, on the ground, the one he was currently fending off was still very much doing well, and he couldn't handle two of them at once.  
  
If Rhen passed out, it was very likely he wouldn't be able to hold out much longer. And then--  
  
He moved, sending a blast of magic to cover her.  
  
-to be continued, maybe-


End file.
